VMware buys security start-up Intrinsic to boost cloud expansion

Intrinsic acquisition will enable software developers to securely tap serverless computing

VMware has acquired security startup Intrinsic as part of its refocus on public cloud. The term of the deal were not announced.

"This acquisition brings us unique expertise and technology as we look to expand our VMware AppDefense platform into the public cloud," a VMware spokesperson told CNBC.

Intrinsic is a San Francisco, California-based security start-up that enables software developers to securely tap serverless computing using its platform.

Serverless computing has become increasingly popular in recent years. It involves the cloud provider running the server, dynamically allocating machine resources.

With Intrinsic's technology, users can decide policies and rules on how these systems will work when certain conditions are met. Intrinsic's technology works with serverless offerings in Amazon's, Google's and Microsoft's cloud.

Intrinsic was formerly known as GitStar and was founded in 2015. The company is backed by major venture investors, including First Round Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and NEA.

VMware was founded in 1998 to develop virtualisation software, a market it dominates today with revenues of just under $9 billion. Its VMware ESXi software is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on server hardware without requiring an additional underlying operating system.

VMware's acquisition of Intrinsic is consistent with the company's vision detailed at the RSA Conference in May. At that time the company said that it is working on a strategy to help organisations thwart cyber attacks with a new approach focusing more on applications and less on infrastructure. The new approach, according to VMware, attempts to reduce the attack surface rather than chasing threats.

In 2016, VMware announced a new alliance with Amazon Web Services. In 2017, VMware acquired VeloCloud in a bid to expand its range of software-defined wide-area networking products and services.

Last year, the company rolled out its AWS-based cloud platform to customers across Europe. At that time, VMware said that it was looking to "accelerate and simplify enterprise cloud migration and hybrid cloud deployments".

Earlier this year, the firm acquired Bitnami, a package application company, which offers solutions for deploying preliminary software on top of cloud-based servers. In June, VMware said that it was interested in purchasing cloud-application delivery platform Avi Networks.

Last week, VMware also disclosed that it was in talks with Pivotal over a potential acquisition.